"If that sounds far-fetched, consider this: A few weeks ago a robot called AlphaZero taught itself how to play chess in four hours – then it beat a grandmaster with moves never seen in the game’s history."

"The robot was given the rules and instructed to learn how to win by playing against itself. In doing so it amassed centuries of chess knowledge and tactics then went on to surpass all previous human ingenuity in the game."

In a sense, it didn't teach itself to play chess; it was told all the rules, and then I guess you know “how to play chess”. However, went from there to playing really, really good chess by itself, in four hours. Assuming you count wall clock and not combined computing time.